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[Aug. 4th, 2005|09:20 pm] |
Characters: Jack, Jake, Avery
Rating: NC-17 eventually, probably.
Universe: Jack and Jake are pirates and Avery is the governor's son.
Date: Sometime in the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century.
Avery awoke to the sound of gunshots.
The mid-July weather was warm and thick with humidity that never lifted until well after dark, when no one was even awake to take advantage of it. The small village, usualy bustling until ten or eleven o'clock, had been quiet since noon. Most of the villagers spent their evenings at the water's edge, where there were more rocks than sand yet it hardly mattered as long as it was cool.
Young children fished off of the single ship's dock, and ran up the single cobblestone street that cut the village in two. The manor that Avery lived in with his family was a hike across a field and through small forest, but from certain angles Avery could see the entire village laid out beside them, the ocean spread out in front.
Avery had been outside on the veranda that evening, reading a book that could barely hold his interest, for the longer he read, the more the words seemed to bleed together. He had stood, stretched, and stared out over the bluff to the calm waters of the sound, dark blue like the evening sky. He had picked up his small Jack Russel named Azizi and sat in a larger chair with the intention of resting the heat away. And he had quickly fallen asleep.
When he awoke, it was black as pitch save for a bright orange light that was visible even through the wall of tries around his home. Fire. He stood and found that Azizi was hiding underneath a table near the chair he'd fallen asleep in. Hoping she'd remain there, Avery ran into the house, only to find that the door leading outside had splintered where something very small had sailed through it with powerful force. A bullet.
Not wanting to draw attention to himself, yet trembling so severely he could barely walk, Avery entered the house and looked around. Nothing seemed awry. But then someone screamed, his mother, and there was the sound of something hard hitting bone and another blood-curdling scream (his sister's).
He ran through the dining room in which he was standing, through a back staircase that led up to the servant's quarters, through another door that led to his father's study where the muskets were kept loaded and ready for any attack. They had never thought something would happen.
He grabbed one and returned the way he had come, trying to conceal the weapon at his side lest anyone notice him and try to take it from him. When he reached the parlour door, he kicked it open. It hit someone behind it and they let out a yelp, but Avery's attention wasn't drawn to it. He was staring at the opposite wall where his mother, father, sister and brother were bound and gagged and slumped together, bleeding from lacerations across their faces and bodies.
They looked horrified to see him, and Avery's mother was trying desperately to get him to leave, but if he had wanted to (which he did not) it wouldn't have mattered: he was cornered.
The door slammed shut behind him and three men, all dressed in tattered clothes and smeared with soot and dirt, stepped out of the shadows.
"Well, well, well!" one of them said, the tallest, most brutish of the lot. His face was lined with scars and burnt by the sun, and his bald pate glinted in the candlelight. "What do we got 'ere, eh?" It was obvious what they were. Pirates.
Avery concealed the musket lamely at his side, though he knew they could have spotted it by now, and it would be very easy for them to find it. His heart was beating so quickly he could barely hear the second pirate speak. "Mus' be th'heir."
The door locked.
Avery couldn't speak, and he knew his voice would betray his fear, and the last thing he wanted was for the pirates to think him afraid. He wasn't afraid--he was terrified, and the longer he stood, the more adrenaline pumped into his veins.
"Kill him?"
"Nay, not yet. Ransom."
"How can you take me for ransom if you kill my family?" Avery blurted out in anger. Perhaps they would see their error and spare his family's life. What happened to Avery hardly mattered so long as he still had his mother, his father, his siblings, his home. Even if he was taken from it, it would still be there when he was saved.
But the pirates laughed, and as they did so, they turned, raised their pistols, and began to fire. The sounds that his family made, the splattering of blood, the cracking of the walls. Avery screamed, and hit the door as the explosion of gunpowder burst his ears. And somehow, as he watched his entire life pooling in blood before his eyes, Avery managed to raise the musket and shoot.
They were dead. Everyone in the room was dead save for him. The wall along which his family had been thrown was stained with blood, a curtain of blood from the ceiling to the floor, pooling out along the hardwood floor, slowly making its way towards him.
He ran. He ran from the room and back to his father's study as something hit the front door and threw it open. He took a pistol this time and flew down the back stairs, out the dining room, and onto the veranda, his body shaking and spattered with the blood of the men he had killed. He had killed. His clothes, once white, were marked with death.
He grabbed Azizi and ran through the forest with her squirming in his arms. He had no idea where he was going, but he had to stay alive. Branches hit him, sliced his cheek, cut his hands and tore his stockings. He tripped on a stump and scraped the skin off of his leg. Azizi ran ahead, but he caught her immediately. She couldn't leave him, too.
If he was crying, he barely noticed it. Behind him he could smell smoke, but he was so deep into the wood that he could not have seen anything, though he knew. He knew perfectly well. The forest floor began to slope down, the dirt began to turn muddy, and soon it was so dark he could barely see a foot in either direction. Through the forest he ran, down the hill, down down down until light shone at the base of the trees and then more light. And then he was out in the clearing, standing in hay that stretched ahead of him to the village.
The village that was burning.
Flames licked the sky, smoke billowed through the air like black clouds, screams shot through the air like the bullets that were razing the town. And at the harbor was a ship. A ship that had carried in these men, these men who had destroyed his entire life. Avery ran through the field, an obvious target for anyone who spot who was trying to spot him, but he didn't care. He ran as fast as he could, the hay cutting his exposed skin (he couldn't feel it). Azizi squirmed in his arms, yipped because of how tight Avery was holding her, fought against him. But Avery held.
He ran between two burning buildings, the wood creaking ominously above his head. The road, once he reached it, was filled with people, both dead and alive, and debris of all kinds. Blood splattered the windows that were not broken, men with knives and pistols killed everyone in their path, so Avery hid. Hid and watched as one building fell, then another.
Tearing through the street, his head pounding and his heart racing, his arm was grazed by something sharp, most likely a bullet, and he darted out of sight and over the protective sea wall. It wasn't safe here. He ran along the rocky shore until his head exploded with blinding pain and all went dark. |
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